


for near is where you'll meet

by susiecarter



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Forced Proximity, Idiots in Love, M/M, Magical Accidents, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 13:17:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19132801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Among the towering, crumbled ruins of Ravenwind, barely visible through the trees, a distant light grew brighter."There," Khadgar said. "That's where it is.""Fantastic," Lothar said, panting and wiping black blood off his sword. "And how many more harpies do you suppose there are between here and there?"





	for near is where you'll meet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skitz_phenom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skitz_phenom/gifts).



> Your prompts for this fandom were all so wonderful I couldn't choose between them, so I stacked a couple on top of each other and went to town. :D I can only hope you enjoy the result, Skitz_phenom, and that you've had a great Fandom5K!
> 
> I'm entirely ignorant of game canon, aside from some stuff I wikied to fill in the background a little bit; apologies in advance if magical theory as I've presented it here contradicts it. /o\ (Also, I couldn't resist an "effective mate" callback, because the look on Lothar's face during that sequence is gold. ;D)

 

 

For near is where you'll meet what you have wandered far to find.

—from [Draw Near](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/54911/draw-near) by Scott Cairns

 

 

Among the towering, crumbled ruins of Ravenwind, barely visible through the trees, a distant light grew brighter.

"There," Khadgar said. "That's where it is."

"Fantastic," Lothar said, panting and wiping black blood off his sword. "And how many more harpies do you suppose there are between here and there?"

"... Probably not _that_ many?" Khadgar offered, with an undented optimism that should have been profoundly annoying.

But then this wasn't entirely his fault. Lothar had agreed to go along with this, after all; he was the one who should have known better.

As the queen's champion, of course, he'd technically have been responsible for the safety of her most valued advisors to some degree, even if Taria _hadn't_ explicitly charged him with the task in Khadgar's case. But she had. And with Khadgar's undeniable talent for getting himself mired in some fresh kind of shit every time he turned around, there was no way Lothar would have let him come here alone. To the ancient wreck that was all that remained of Ravenwind, and in search of a powerful artifact brimming over with deep magic? He shuddered to himself just thinking about it.

But, of course, Khadgar's talent for getting himself into shit was perhaps second only to his talent for getting _Lothar_ into shit. Scarce an hour in his company, and Lothar had wound up watching him stick his fingers in a dead man's mouth—a dead man who had been full of the Fel. And it had only gotten worse from there.

It wasn't as though Khadgar had been no help at all with the harpies. Lothar wished he'd insisted that they come on gryphonback, for then he'd have had the advantage with or without Khadgar. But Khadgar's transportation spell had certainly been faster. And as it was—with the harpies able to come at him not only from all sides but from above, when they chose—he was grateful for Khadgar's quickness in binding them with light, or banishing them off to the far edge of the forest in flares of blue.

Not that he planned to say so.

He gave Khadgar a long flat look instead; and Khadgar grimaced and cleared his throat, and gestured toward the light again.

"Look, it's not that far. It should be right there."

"Of course," Lothar said, very mild, not meaning a word of it. "And we'll just pick it up and take it, and nothing will go wrong."

 

 

They were both right, in the end.

It wasn't as far as it had looked at first. Lothar began to think it was something about this place, the way it had been built—or the wards they kept encountering, Khadgar holding out a hand before Lothar could walk into them and carefully undoing them one at a time. As if some magic lingered here that made a stride both less and more than it should be, but at last the illusion was dispelling itself before them.

There were fewer harpies, the closer they came to the vast colonnaded hall from which that light emanated—which should perhaps have been a pleasant change, but instead only served to make Lothar warier still of whatever else might wait for them.

But the broad stone steps that led into the hall were bare and even mostly whole; and from the base of them, Lothar could see a dais, and a plinth raised upon it. And that strange knotted silvery _thing_ that rested upon it, brilliant violet light overflowing from it and curling up into the air like smoke—that had to be what they'd come for.

"Well," Lothar said, "I suppose that wasn't so bad," and he set a foot upon the lowest stair.

" _Wait_ ," Khadgar said, but too late: already what seemed like half the hall had begun to topple at once, the whole width of the stair beneath Lothar's boot lit up with unfamiliar sigils—and they were not the blue of the magic Lothar knew best, nor even the green of the Fel, but a deep violet, like the light that came from the thing on the plinth.

He closed his eyes, and thought wryly to himself that he should have known better indeed. And then he heard Khadgar shout, and suddenly the backs of his eyelids were lit up bright as day, and nothing crushed him after all; he flinched and looked up, and bands of blue light, shimmering rippling waves of it, had caught all that stone, and held it suspended above him.

Khadgar's eyes were lit blue, too, with the effort of it, and his face had turned grave and sober, grimacing. He reached out with his other hand toward the plinth up ahead of them, and spoke a sharp torrent of words; and a circle of blue light burst from his palm and spun off, looped itself around the glowing silver thing and lifted it, and it was brought to Khadgar's hand like he had only ever needed to ask for it.

But the violet light flared brighter, too, even as that shining knot of silver settled itself into Khadgar's grasp. Suddenly it wasn't only the one stair upon which Lothar had trod, but the next, and the next, half a dozen of them and the great broad paving-stone that they had crossed to reach the stair in the first place. Khadgar spoke again, more urgently still, and Lothar shielded his eyes with one hand, sword in the other—he could _see_ it, curling shapes made of light twisting against each other in the air, as the violet magic cast itself and Khadgar's spells shifted to hold it off. And then—

Then it was all light, and Lothar could see nothing else, and everything fell away from him at once and was gone.

 

 

Lothar woke aching, prone, and for a moment didn't know where he was.

And then he did, and pushed himself up, blinking, trying to decide what had happened.

He lay upon the stone at the base of the stair. The great vaulted hall before him had collapsed in upon itself, and great slabs of cracked and toppled rubble had come down all around—but the space where he and Khadgar lay was clear of it.

For Khadgar was beside him, so close their arms touched. His eyes were closed, and he was very still, and for a moment Lothar thought the worst, his heart cold in his chest.

But he reached out and touched Khadgar's face and it was warm; and then he gripped Khadgar by the shoulder and shook a little, and Khadgar made a small grumpy sound and grimaced, and cracked one dark eye open. "What—"

"Easy, there," Lothar said, and steadied him as he sat up. "It appears we live, despite our stupidity, and you have your precious artifact besides."

Khadgar blinked at him, and then at the clear space around them: the knotted silver globe was there, still spilling a violet glow all about itself, where it had rolled from Khadgar's slack unconscious grasp and come to rest.

Lothar's sword, likewise, lay beside him on the stone. He picked it up in one hand, the other still resting absently on Khadgar's shoulder, and together they struggled to their feet.

And then he let go of Khadgar. He—he meant to let go of Khadgar. Why couldn't he let go of Khadgar?

Lothar turned to stare in bewildered betrayal at his thumb; he could lift all of his hand from Khadgar's shoulder, but when he had, it was—he couldn't move his thumb, not to save his own life. He was immobilized. He would have been better able to move a mountain by setting his shoulder to the base of it and pushing.

He laid his hand back down, and lifted it again, and this time the thumb came away. But the side of his palm, left to the last, would not.

"Khadgar," he said.

Khadgar had been examining his silvery prize, tucking it away with great care within the bag he had brought slung across his chest, and glancing round what remained of the hall. "Hm?"

"Khadgar," Lothar repeated, and raised his eyebrows, and tried with all that was in him to take his hand from Khadgar's shoulder—gritting his teeth, straining, and in the moment before he was forced to concede and leave it where it was, he swore he perceived a faint violet shimmer.

Khadgar stared at Lothar, and then at Lothar's hand. He lifted a cautious foot, as though he meant to step out from underneath it; but the look on his face said he didn't expect to meet with much success, and indeed, he did not. The contact between them might be reduced to a single fingertip—but that single fingertip could not be lifted or knocked away, and the touch remained unbroken.

"Oh," Khadgar said.

"Oh," Lothar repeated, and raised his eyebrows higher.

"The spell on the stair, it was—you saw the shape of it?"

Lothar thought of those lines of curling light he'd seen in the air, half of them blazing violet, arranged in curves and angles, twisting themselves together. "I saw it," he said. "I didn't _understand_ it."

"Well, I did." Khadgar said this not boastfully, but matter-of-factly, in the easy straightforward way with which he addressed all that he could do that other men could not. "The spell that made the hall collapse, it was—they were put there together. One to bring the building down, and—"

"And one to hold us beneath it while it fell," Lothar guessed, suddenly certain he had the right of it.

"I thought I'd managed to counter its effects," Khadgar said. "But I—I must have just changed them."

Lothar gave him a very flat, steady sort of look.

"We'd have been trapped here otherwise," Khadgar said, a little defensively. "Immobilized. We'd—if the rubble hadn't killed us, we'd have starved to death here, unable to lift our feet from the stone."

Lothar considered this, and let the weight of his stare ease a little. If it was true—and he had no reason to doubt it—that would have been an uglier fate by far than this.

"Besides," Khadgar was saying, "it sort of worked," and he shifted his shoulder beneath Lothar's hand; for the touch to skim sideways, forward or back, was allowed, it seemed. By the sound of it, the curse as it had been meant to fall wouldn't have let them move at all. That was something.

"Well, then," Lothar said, and sheathed his sword with his other hand, the better to gesture expansively between them. "Fix it."

"What? No. I mean, I can't just—I tried to block it," Khadgar said, "and at least a third of the spell still managed to get through. This wasn't supposed to happen. It's going to take some time for me to even figure out what—"

Lothar bit the inside of his cheek, and said, "Then let's get this artifact we came all this way for back to Karazhan, and you take your time and figure it out, and _then_ fix it."

Khadgar looked at him.

"Because you can fix this," Lothar said. "Right?"

"Right. Yes," Khadgar said. "I can fix this. I need to do some research, that's all."

Research, Lothar thought, and felt the barest tingle of trepidation work its way down his spine.

Research took time. Especially the way Khadgar did it, stacks and stacks of books, his own handwritten notes, papers spread out or pinned up on cords. How long would it take? How long would they—would they have to stay like this? He kept his face blank, even. But there was a shiver trapped beneath the surface of his skin, to think of what it would mean to be around Khadgar all that time, to have to keep touching him like this; to not be able to leave his side.

Because it should have frustrated him. He should have felt snared by it, irritated, impatient.

It shouldn't have lit a selfish secret gladness in him instead: to be allowed. Better still, to be given an excuse—and one even more thoroughly inarguable than orders from the queen, at that.

Khadgar had to bend down to grab a piece of rock, to scrape the transportation sigils into the stone beneath them. And Lothar could do nothing but move with him, hand skimming the line of his shoulder, settling at the nape of his neck, as he did it; and then blue light rose up all around them in spiraling arcs, and in the space of a breath, they were warped away.

 

 

Karazhan was much the same as ever.

That still surprised Lothar a little, sometimes. Karazhan had meant Medivh to him, and Medivh Karazhan, for so long that he felt it should have troubled him more that one was now without the other, and would be forever. And with Moroes lost, too, it was—the whole great spire was empty of familiar voices, and should have been strange to him.

But he still remembered the font spilling over with that poisonous green light, and the way Medivh's face and voice had changed; the spurs of bone breaking through the skin, the strange sallow look of him, and his _eyes_ —

Compared to that, Karazhan only quiet and empty was comforting indeed.

And now it was no longer either, with Khadgar stacking book after book upon one of the tables in the great library, and Lothar following him helplessly like a loyal hound at heel.

They hadn't come straight to Karazhan, of course. Khadgar had taken them back to Stormwind first, to report their success to Taria—and then to explain that both her champion and her most powerful magical advisor outside the council of the Kirin Tor would be unavailable for a time.

Taria had looked at Khadgar, and then at Lothar, and had raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry.

And Lothar had lifted his hand, where the back of it had been pressed to Khadgar's wrist, so that Khadgar's arm had been made to bend with it. "I can't fight like this," he'd said.

"Ah," Taria had murmured, and then the corner of her mouth had quirked just a little, in the way that Lothar knew well meant she wished dearly to laugh aloud.

Sometimes he longed for the days when he'd been able to get away with tripping her so she fell into mud puddles.

And then Khadgar had taken them to Karazhan. Lothar had thought he would want to ascend to the font right away, and had grimaced and braced himself for all those stairs—but when he'd said as much, Khadgar had given him a blank, startled sort of look.

"Wasn't that the point of all this?" Lothar had said, baffled. "That thing you wanted—you said it could restore the font."

For the font had run dry, dull and empty, since the day Medivh had died in it. The forest had begun to grow back already, at the edges, though there was much ground that was still black and blighted with the shock of the blast that had passed through it; but not even a spark had graced the stone of the font. That was the whole reason Khadgar had been so intent on this little errand in the first place.

"Yes—it _could_ ," Khadgar had enunciated, very precisely. "But you saw for yourself, the spells at Ravenwind—they're ancient, different from the magic we use these days. Working out how to join the Source of Allfire to the heart of the font of Karazhan will take even more books than _this_ ," and he'd waved a hand at the place where their elbows were touching and could not be pulled apart.

So: here they were. Khadgar had dived deep into his books, and Lothar couldn't leave him, could do nothing but sit there and—be beside him.

In a way, it wasn't much of a change. Not really.

It should have been more of one; but Lothar had already spent a great deal of his time around Khadgar, even without an ancient curse to bind him there. Taria's own commands had given him the leeway to make himself into Khadgar's shadow—for without Medivh, the Alliance's forces could ill afford the loss of another mage of the caliber of a Guardian, even if Khadgar refused to bear that title. And a mage who had absorbed half the font of Karazhan, at that, or at least that was how it had seemed to Lothar's untutored eye at the time. For all he knew, Khadgar was half again as powerful now as Medivh had ever been.

He'd have asked, but something stayed him. Khadgar never liked to speak of that day, and in truth Lothar didn't care to, either. For he knew there was another reason Taria had charged him with the duty to keep watch over Khadgar; she had never said it in so many words, but he had seen it in her face.

 _Let me see your eyes_ , he had said, hand outstretched to Khadgar, shaking—and Khadgar had looked at him with a dark clear gaze, no hint of the Fel in it, and for Lothar it had ended there, relief like a balm wiping away the ache in his chest.

But—

But Medivh had hidden the influence upon him for—for who knew how long? He'd done magic in front of all of them, Moroes, Lothar, Llane, and they had seen nothing.

Lothar knew what would be required of him, if by some dark and terrible chance he should look into Khadgar's eyes one day and see green. He might even be able to do it.

But he suspected there wouldn't be much left of him after.

He tried never to think of it; he certainly never spoke of it, and every moment he spent with Khadgar—Khadgar and his books and his stubbornness; the way he could never stop poking at a thing until he learned all the answers; that peculiar strain of bravery he possessed that seemed to express itself mostly in the form of being very irritating to people it was unwise to irritate—made it easier to push aside. Because Khadgar was so thoroughly himself, and in a time when so much seemed lost, that was a boon Lothar could not refuse.

So: he'd spent a great deal of his time with Khadgar already. Even if this hadn't happened, if they'd retrieved Khadgar's precious Allfire from Ravenwind without incident, Lothar would probably have ended up here in the great library of Karazhan, watching Khadgar read. It was only—

It was only that they wouldn't have been _touching_ so much.

Lothar had kept himself in check very well, so far. He'd always taken care to stand at a reasonable distance from Khadgar, to occupy himself with other things—guard assignments, war intelligence, tactical reports from the front. There was much that demanded the attention of Anduin Lothar these days, after all. He'd only gone to lean in close over Khadgar's shoulder when Khadgar bid him do it, wishing to show him something or to ask what he thought.

Sometimes they needed to travel by gryphonback. Khadgar could only work the transportation spell to reach a place he'd seen himself, after all—he'd have taken himself straight to that plinth in the hall of Ravenwind, otherwise, and been back within an instant and no harm done. And Lothar still liked to mock him for his nerves, but he never complained of Khadgar's hands clutching at his shoulders or his sides as they flew, though he felt the ghost of their touch long after they were gone.

But it always ended; he always moved away again. And now—

Now he _couldn't_.

He'd learned it didn't matter where they touched, as long as they touched somewhere. The best he could do was to change positions: to spend a little while with his knee pressed to Khadgar's beneath the table, or the side of his foot to Khadgar's ankle; and then to lean their shoulders together instead, or nudge a knuckle against Khadgar's elbow.

And he—he sat there like that while Khadgar read, and muttered to himself, and made notes. He sat there and thought of new ways to touch Khadgar, and steadfastly ignored the bittersweet heat simmering beneath his skin; because he had to do it, that was all. Because in times of need, his mind was trained to turn itself to strategy, and never mind that now the strategy involved considering every place on Khadgar where he could put his hands—

He bit the inside of his cheek and cursed himself silently, and couldn't sit there any longer. He just—he needed to stand, to stretch his legs.

He cleared his throat, and set a hand on Khadgar's shoulder so the spell would permit him to part his foot from Khadgar's, and nudged the chair aside. Khadgar had startled and looked over at him, the first few times he'd shifted his grasp one way or another; but he'd learned Lothar wasn't intending to catch his attention by it, and this time he only moved his shoulder against the touch, absent, and kept reading.

Lothar looked at him, the intent and studious angle of his brows, his inkstained fingertips, and wanted—

—to walk. To walk a little, that was what he needed.

He stood, and gauged the distance; four strides, he judged. He could get at least that much, if he placed his fingertips at one of Khadgar's shoulders, trailed a touch along the yoke of them and ended at the other. Four strides, and still touching for all their length.

Not enough. Not nearly enough. But it would have to do, until Khadgar found whatever it was he was looking for.

And in truth, it _was_ a relief to move: to straighten his knees and flex his ankles, to remind himself it could be done. He breathed deep, and felt his own shoulders ease, and something that had been winding itself tight in his chest was loosened.

On the third pass, though, he erred.

Not so very much as that—his fingers slipped across the line of Khadgar's collar, that was all. He felt embroidery, and wondered at it absently, and then all at once he'd found the nape of Khadgar's neck instead, soft skin and fine dark hair.

His mind went blank; and of course he tried to lift his hand away, reflexive, and failed utterly, so that for a moment he could do nothing but stare at his own disobedient limb.

Khadgar sucked in a sharp breath and—and shivered beneath Lothar's fingertips.

"Apologies," Lothar heard himself say, and to him the word felt strained in the speaking, but Khadgar didn't seem to notice.

"No, it's. I," Khadgar said, and coughed, and looked up at him; and lucky that he had, so that Lothar's hand slid to the rise of his shoulder, because for some reason Lothar hadn't moved it himself, useless fool that he was. "It's fine. Just—ticklish."

It wasn't fine.

And wouldn't be until Khadgar had undone this curse and fixed them. Lothar swallowed, and sat down in his chair again, pressed his booted toes to Khadgar's heel so he could pull his hand away to somewhere safer, and promised himself he wouldn't move again until this had been solved.

As a younger man, hunting, he'd held the same position half a day or more. He knew how to be patient, when he wished it. He could master himself.

How much longer could this even take?

 

 

"Lothar. Lothar."

He was moving, just a little. Being shaken—a hand on his arm. Warmth along the line of his thigh, and he was—where was he?

Lothar came awake, lifting his head, and then grimaced; he'd let it fall sideways, tipped against the back of his chair, and one side of his neck was abruptly spanned with sharp fire. Hell.

"What?" he murmured.

"Lothar," Khadgar said again, with undeniable gentleness. "I've summoned food. You should eat something."

Lothar sat up a little in his chair and rolled his shoulders; he was surprised for an instant when Khadgar's hand fell away from his arm—had Khadgar sorted them out already? But no, it was only that they touched elsewhere: Khadgar had moved his own chair nearer, so their thighs pressed together.

So he could keep both his hands free, no doubt, one to hold his books open and one to make his own notes. Khadgar could be very practical-minded when the mood took him.

And he hadn't lied. There was food.

Lothar eyed the trays, meat and stew that still steamed, soft pale bread, cheese, fruit. Probably brought straight from the castle kitchens in Stormwind, by Khadgar's summoning. Taria had no doubt expected it, and had had all this prepared and waiting.

He picked up a piece of cheese and broke it in his hands, and bit a corner. Sharp. He liked it sharp.

"All right," he said, still chewing. "Go on, tell me."

"What?"

"Whatever it is you don't want to tell me," Lothar elaborated, gesturing toward it all. A full supper, neatly summoned to the table, and _then_ Khadgar had woken him—that Khadgar, bookworm Khadgar, had thought of food at all with the tomes of Karazhan before him was enough to sound an alarm. "Just say it, hm?"

Khadgar grimaced and looked away, rubbing absently at the back of his neck. "I think I've figured out what went wrong," he said, but he didn't say it as though it were the good news it should have been. "I was right, in a way. The spell from Ravenwind was too strong and too strange—the counterspells I tried weren't enough. It—" and then he stopped and shook his head. "It's as though you had two pages held in front of you; two pages from two different books, different sizes, different languages. If you set one atop the other, and then held them before a flame—"

"You'd see part of one," Lothar finished for him, "and part of the other."

"Yes," Khadgar said. "And some of the lines would be illegible, they would cover each other and be nothing, gibberish. But some of each page might show, in the gaps between the lines on the other, and some of the text could still be understood."

Lothar squinted at him. "So you blunted it, but couldn't stop it," he said. "Didn't we know this already?"

"It was my best _guess_ ," Khadgar said. "But I didn't know how it had happened, or what was left of the spell. I think I understand it now, and it should be safe for me to begin picking it apart."

Lothar raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem pleased to be sharing these glad tidings," he observed, very mild.

"It's complex," Khadgar admitted, a little abashed. "Fascinating, of course—the magic that was used in the ancient days of Ravenwind is nothing like what the Kirin Tor teach. I've never seen anything like it," and his tone had gone bright and admiring; and then he cleared his throat and snuck a glance at Lothar, and rubbed the back of his neck again. "The structure of the spell is complicated, and I—fractured it, I suppose you might say. Some fragments of the counterspell are still tangled up in it, I think."

"You made a mess of it," Lothar said.

"I made a mess of it," Khadgar agreed. "And there's still a great deal of energy bound up in it, though I'm not sure how. Perhaps its age has something to do with it. Or how close it was to the Source of Allfire. Usually it's the casting that bears the energy, and the spell dissipates when the casting is complete. Like a transportation spell, or—"

"Or the portals through the Great Gates," Lothar said.

Khadgar winced. "Right. Anyway, I began the work while you were asleep. But it's going to take more than an evening, especially an evening that's already half-gone."

Lothar glanced over his shoulder at one of the tall narrow windows. Sure enough, the sun had already set, and he could pick out a handful of stars against the gathering dark.

"It must be done carefully," Khadgar was saying, "or any number of things might go wrong—"

"And we've had enough mishaps of that sort for one day," Lothar murmured.

Khadgar made a little pinched sort of face and didn't disagree. He reached out and took a chunk of bread from a tray, and tore into it with a small satisfied noise—he'd probably been hungry for hours already, but hadn't realized it with his books to distract him.

And Lothar put another piece of cheese in his mouth, because it was sharp the way he liked and tasted good, and because he was no more eager to say the thing Khadgar wasn't saying than Khadgar was.

It couldn't be done tonight; they would have to rest. They would have to find some way to sleep—not half upright in a chair like Lothar when he dozed off, but properly.

And they would have to do it together.

 

 

In truth, Lothar had never thought to wonder where Medivh slept; for that matter, he'd never been sure Medivh slept at all. He'd been obscurely relieved to come here in urgency and find Medivh only shirtless and sculpting a golem—no doubt Moroes had seen far worse, in his day.

But as it turned out, there were very finely appointed chambers at the top of the central tower. Up even more stairs, of course, but they managed to make it without wheezing at each other too embarrassingly.

And then—well.

Then they were faced with a suite whose central feature was a truly massive bed.

Lother was conscious of Khadgar beside him, sneaking a sideways glance at him, and was careful to eye all the silks and linens and cushions with an assessing, critical sort of air, as if he thought nothing of it except to make a face at its gaudiness. It only made sense to be practical about the matter: they could not part, and the bed was more than large enough for them both, and that was that.

And if there happened to be a prickle of heat climbing Lothar's throat, well, he was fairly sure Khadgar couldn't see it, with nothing but the single witchlight Khadgar had cast to illuminate their way.

Khadgar split the witchlight into six with a word and a gesture, and each of the six flew obediently to the lamps set into the walls, filling all the chamber with a cool, soothing blue light.

And all their preparations could be made without much trouble. Washing, relieving themselves, dressing down to underclothes for the night—it was easy enough. They didn't have to look at each other at all, didn't even have to be facing each other, as long as any part of them touched as the spell required.

At last, predictably enough, there was nothing else left to do but lie down.

And of course Lothar couldn't even tell himself he'd roll away to an edge and stay there, couldn't set a boundary for himself not to cross. They couldn't stop touching, even if it was only in the smallest part.

So he made himself settle on his back instead, kept his motions easy and casual: tucked one hand comfortably behind his head, and left the other between them so the side of it could remain pressed to Khadgar's. There. Not so bad after all.

Khadgar was sneaking looks at him again. He let himself glance over once, just once, and raised an eyebrow. "Good night," he said, and didn't wait for Khadgar's reply before he closed his eyes.

"Good night," Khadgar murmured after a moment; and then beyond Lothar's eyelids the world dimmed—the witchlights snuffing themselves one at a time, going out.

And Lothar kept his eyes closed, forced himself to stillness and ruthlessly emptied his mind. This was nothing but a minor inconvenience, and Khadgar would fix it, and that would be that. He'd suffered far, far worse than to spend a night in a vast comfortable bed with a man he liked and trusted.

He breathed, slow and even, and lay there, and thought of nothing, and Khadgar's hand was warm against his. And sooner than he'd expected, a dim faraway surprise, sleep did overtake him after all.

 

 

Awareness came over him much the same way. He had a vague sense that perhaps it approached, distant and hazy, and then all at once it was upon him: he lay prone, somewhere very comfortable indeed; he was half-covered by cloth light as a breeze, the first soft touch of dawn light; and something—someone—lay against him, warm and close and utterly relaxed.

Whoever it was must still be asleep, he thought blurrily, and risked prying an eye open even as true consciousness, thought and attention and memory, returned to him, and oh. It was Khadgar.

He swallowed.

Knowing that, his gaze alighted upon Khadgar's dark mussed hair, his face where it was tilted against Lothar's shoulder—the arm he'd slung unknowingly across Lothar's chest—with a spark of heat already burning in him. He cursed himself silently in every tongue he knew, but—

But Khadgar slept. Khadgar slept, and Lothar might never see him thus again.

The sun was indeed rising, spilling red and pink and gold in glittering bands over the horizon, somewhere out the window. Its glow had not yet sharpened to the crispness of true morning, and yet Lothar felt he could pick out every detail of Khadgar's face with helpless clarity.

There was a softness to him, despite all that pain and struggle and uncertainty could do. Because so _much_ of Khadgar was soft, Lothar thought absently. His heart, that face, his mouth; everything about him, nearly, except for his mind. His mind, honed on all those books to an edge as sharp as Lothar's sword, and his conviction—the intensity, the stubbornness.

They complemented each other, really, all these pieces of Khadgar. The softness made those moments of strength and steel into a striking surprise, the more impossible to look away from for their apparent incongruity. And likewise the softness was rendered luxury, an undeniable pleasure all its own: cheese of exactly the right sharpness even though you hadn't thought to ask for it; someone whom it turned out you could trust with your life on a day all else seemed lost; or—

Or, perhaps, an enormous bed spilling over with morning sunlight, Lothar thought wryly, from which you couldn't convince yourself to rise.

Khadgar's face, his cheeks, his ears, were dusted pink with warmth; there was a line crossing his forehead where he must have had it pressed to a fold in Lothar's shirt, and his eyelashes were fine dark smudges, his mouth slack and open a little against Lothar's shoulder.

And Lothar quite truthfully couldn't take his hands off him, so—so perhaps this once he was allowed. Perhaps this once it was all right to permit himself to stay here, and be at ease, and take joy from it, for as long as it would last. Whatever else happened, however long this war with the Horde carried on—he would have this memory, at least, and visit it whenever he liked, and no one could take it from him.

The sunlight crept across the walls, growing brighter as it went. Lothar lay and did not move. Khadgar moved a little, once, but only to settle against Lothar more closely still, turning his face into Lothar's shoulder with a soft indistinct sound.

But at last it happened, as Lothar had known it must: Khadgar woke, too.

He didn't open his eyes right away. He shifted, and then scrunched up his nose in a way that should have looked ridiculous. Lothar, to his resigned dismay, discovered he found it almost intolerably endearing instead. And then he blinked, once, twice, and those clear dark eyes found Lothar. And for a moment—

For a moment, he only lay there and looked, in a soft stunned sort of way that made Lothar's heart trip in his chest; and Lothar looked back, and couldn't find it in himself to speak or move, to bring that moment to an end.

But then Khadgar was not only awake but _aware_. Lothar could see it in his eyes, the moment he remembered why they were here, what was happenening to them; and he jerked halfway upright and flushed an uncomfortable red, and said, "Oh. Oh, I'm—"

One of his feet had slid between Lothar's ankles, and the other leg had hooked itself over one of Lothar's knees; he scrambled to disentangle them, and Lothar helped but did it leisurely, as if it made not much difference to him either way.

"Very warm," Lothar said.

Khadgar's head came up. "What?"

"You're very warm," Lothar repeated, eyebrows raised, as if there were any chance Khadgar had been about to say that instead of _sorry_. "Perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick to put you on watch, in the mountains on the way to the Horde warcamp. I should've taken it myself and put you in my bedroll like a stone pulled from the fire, to heat it for me."

Khadgar rolled his eyes; but he smiled, too. And then he looked at Lothar in an odd steady way, and the smile fell away, and he said, "Coming back here always makes me think of that day."

Lothar didn't need to ask which day he meant. He shut his eyes, and didn't answer.

"I don't want you to think I don't understand," Khadgar went on. "The queen is a clever woman. I know there's more than one reason she wished you to guard me so closely, and to have charge of my safety. If the Fel could corrupt Medivh—"

"Khadgar," Lothar heard himself say, hoarse and strained. No, no, not that; of all the mornings Khadgar could have chosen to speak of all they hadn't said, why did it have to be _this_ morning, when Lothar had no hope of escape—

"No, no," Khadgar said, sounding startled, and the tips of their fingers had been left touching for the sake of the spell but abruptly that wasn't all: he felt Khadgar's hand at the nape of his neck, warm and reassuring. "I wanted to say I'm glad, that's all," Khadgar murmured, very low. "I'm glad it's you. Not because—I mean, obviously you won't be very happy about it, if it comes to that, and I'm sorry. But I suppose I'm selfish enough to want it to be you anyway, if it has to be someone. Because I trust you, Anduin Lothar, and you are a good man, and I know you'll only do it if you absolutely must."

Lothar bit down on a laugh that would have come out far too sharply and unsteadily to allow. He shook his head, wordless. As if knowing that Khadgar understood, that Khadgar _trusted_ him with such a thing, could possibly make it less unbearable instead of more.

"I don't," he confessed, and he couldn't say it any louder than a whisper.

Khadgar was silent for a moment. Lothar could practically hear his mind at work, blowing and steaming and clicking along, like King Magni's forge and bellows.

"You don't what?" he said at last.

But Lothar could only shake his head. He wasn't sure he even knew the answer. He didn't trust himself? He didn't have Khadgar's confidence that he would be capable of it, in the moment it was most necessary? All Azeroth at stake, and still he suspected he might falter, because his head might be well aware of his duty, but his heart—

His heart felt certain it would be preferable to cut his own hands off rather than put Khadgar to the sword, and he couldn't swear he disagreed.

But he couldn't say that. Not to Khadgar, who was young and clever and brave, and deserved much better than a weary bitter man who had never learned how not to lose what he loved; not to Khadgar, who believed in him.

He reached without looking and caught Khadgar's shoulder, and with that guidance tipped his head to rest against Khadgar's. And Khadgar's hand tightened at the nape of Lothar's neck, and Khadgar said gently, "Never mind, it's all right. It's all right, Lothar. Come on."

And Lothar let Khadgar nudge him from the bed, and didn't let go; and Khadgar didn't either, grip steady on Lothar's shoulder, though the spell required only the touch of a single fingertip.

 

 

They broke their fast with the remains of their supper. Within a few bites, Khadgar had already become distracted, still chewing on a piece of bread even as he narrowed his eyes at the air between them—his gaze filled with blue light as he did, and clearly he was perceiving something invisible to Lothar, examining the structure of the binding upon them.

He had already begun plucking it apart, Lothar recalled, untangling it like a knotted thread. Surely there couldn't be so much as all that left to do. He would finish today, probably, and then this would be done with; he would turn to the problem of the dry font, and Lothar would—

Lothar would stay with him, bound as helplessly as ever. But the spell would be gone, at least. That would make it easier.

Except Khadgar had begun to frown.

Well. That couldn't be a good sign.

"Something wrong?" Lothar asked, mild, tossing an apple from hand to hand.

"Hush," Khadgar said to him distractedly, peering harder, eyes glowing more brightly still.

Lothar huffed. He should've known. Khadgar never had cared much for answering questions, until he absolutely had to.

Khadgar's brows drew together sharply, and he said a word Lothar was surprised he even knew and flipped two books open at once, absently sliding a third toward himself from the opposite end of the table with a grasping little ripple of blue light.

Patience, Lothar told himself. He ate his apple, and ripped off another chunk of bread for himself, and if he chewed more noisily than was his habit, well, it seemed to make no difference; Khadgar kept frowning down at the pages in front of him, and didn't look up.

"All right," Lothar said at last. "Come on, man. If we're both about to turn to stone—"

"What?" Khadgar said, blinking, and then made a face at him. "No, no, nothing like that. I told you it would take time to deconstruct what remained of the spell, but I began the work last night."

"Yes," Lothar said, "I remember. Must be done carefully, enough mishaps, and so on."

"Yes," Khadgar agreed. "Except—"

"Except?" Lothar prompted, when Khadgar didn't seem inclined to continue.

"It has begun to put itself back together," Khadgar said.

Lothar blinked. "I didn't know spells could do that."

"They _can't_ ," Khadgar said. "It shouldn't be possible. Spells are cast with the use of a certain amount of energy, most often provided by the caster; words, concentration, the directed flow of arcane power."

"Or a thousand prisoners dying at once in cages," Lothar said.

Khadgar grimaced. "Or that," he acknowledged. "But the point is it's typically finite, one way or another. This spell, it was worked into a trap in that stair-step, and a great deal of power was stored there to cast it when it was set off. But once it was cast on us, it was—" He shook his head. "It shouldn't be able to _re_ -cast itself. The portal Medivh cast for the rescued prisoners, to let them escape to Stormwind—when he died, it collapsed. It couldn't continue to cast itself without him. Understand?"

Lothar thought he was beginning to. "Well, then," he said. "What's gone wrong with this one?"

"I don't _know_ ," Khadgar said. "I thought it might be the Source of Allfire, but I sealed a circle around it yesterday when we got back—there's no way the spell could be drawing power from it through that. No one involved with the creation of the trap at Ravenwind is still alive. The only other thing I can think of is—"

He stopped short, and swallowed so hard Lothar could hear his throat click.

"Khadgar?"

Khadgar didn't answer him. He leaned over as far as he could—though of course he couldn't pull his knee away from Lothar's, where they touched beneath the table—and dug a different book out from beneath a stack of six others. It looked older, a little more fragile, and the pages crinkled audibly beneath his fingertips. He read, gaze flicking over a handful of pages, flipping along impatiently. And then he stopped and traced a handful of lines; read them once, again, and then turned that shimmering blue mages' stare on Lothar again—reached out and set his hand to Lothar's arm, and looked at the place where they touched, and swallowed again.

"What is it?" Lothar demanded.

Khadgar blinked, and his eyes were dark again; he jerked his hand away from Lothar, clenching it up, and then turned his face away, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. "There's another possibility," he said, a little unsteadily. "I didn't think of it at first; it's not commonly used these days, theory has advanced—but of course the casters who lived in Ravenwind back then—"

"Khadgar," Lothar said, exasperated.

And Khadgar glanced at him quickly, and then away, and then said quietly, "Emotion."

Lothar went still in his chair.

But the next thing Khadgar said, astoundingly, impossibly, was, "It's my fault, Lothar. I'm sorry."

"Your fault," he repeated, staring.

Khadgar had begun to flush—not the soft pink warmth that had stolen over him while he slept, but a hard unpleasant heat, blotchy, creeping up his throat.

And then he lifted his chin, and met Lothar's eyes levelly, and said, "Yes. It's my fault."

No. Surely that didn't mean what it seemed to. Lothar couldn't fathom it; Khadgar never hesitated to speak, even when he ought to know better. _Especially_ when he ought to know better. And he'd never breathed a word of this, never so much as hinted at it. Lothar had thought Khadgar deserved better: and so, he had decided, he would keep whatever he felt to himself—he wouldn't try to bring the idea to Khadgar's attention, wouldn't talk him into it or convince him to consider it. It hadn't even _occurred_ to him that Khadgar—that Khadgar _already_ —

"If I hated you," Khadgar was saying, "it wouldn't have been able to use that to fuel itself. It wouldn't have fit into the spell."

"A bow in a pikeman's hands," Lothar murmured.

"But I don't," Khadgar said, still so very level in his voice, ears terribly red. "I _want_ you around me all the time. I like it. That must be what it's using. And I am sorry, truly. I never meant for this to cause a problem—"

Lothar caught him by the nape of his neck, thumb against his jaw, fingers curling into that short dark hair, and kissed him.

He hadn't quite meant to. But it turned out he'd constructed the fortress-wall of his resolve upon that one foundation stone: that Khadgar didn't want him, and so as long as Lothar never pressed him to discover whether he _could_ , it didn't have to matter. And now it had cracked down its length and was crumbling away, and he was—all of him was spilling out from behind before he could stop it—

Khadgar made a soft bewildered noise into Lothar's mouth. Lothar broke the kiss and freed him; and he stared at Lothar, panting, eyes round. "But," he said, hoarse. "But—"

"If sentiment such as that is fuel," Lothar said to him, very low, "then I promise you the fault is shared."

Khadgar swallowed, still staring at him, and wet his lips. His gaze flicked back and forth across Lothar's face—uncertainly at first, disbelieving; and then with greater intensity; and then down to Lothar's mouth once, again. "I," he said, and then, " _Lothar_ ," and then he took Lothar's face between his hands and they were kissing again.

And if gazing at Khadgar's face, drinking his fill of it in the morning light, had felt like luxury—how far superior it was to be permitted to touch it, to run his fingertips along the lines of it, to press his mouth to Khadgar's; to lick and bite the curve of Khadgar's lip, and listen to the breathless sounds he made.

Lothar was so consumed with it that in the end it was Khadgar who moved. Lothar didn't understand why, at first, and murmured protest when Khadgar eased away to stand—but then he leaned in again and caught Lothar by the shoulder, the waist, made an impatient sound and then suddenly Lothar felt a cool rippling touch embrace him. And Khadgar was—was _lifting_ him half out of his chair, blue light flaring, and then dropped him almost as abruptly; he stumbled a little and caught himself against the table, and then Khadgar was pressed to him from chest to thigh and—and, yes, all right, this had its advantages over the chair.

Lothar meant to lever himself up onto the table edge, but he was too slow. Khadgar put his hands over Lothar's where Lothar had spread them over the surface, and caught his mouth again, at the same moment he pressed a thigh between Lothar's, and all thought and intention fled. Lothar made a desperate hungry sound against Khadgar's lips and tugged his hands free, the better to grip Khadgar by the hips and guide the stuttering roll of them: for of course every motion as Khadgar thrust against him pressed Khadgar's thigh harder against Lothar's own cock, which was more than making up for having had the good sense to lie quiet this morning.

It was ludicrously good. Lothar felt overwhelmed by it, overtaken, swept away—the heat of it, the intensity, the sheer unbelievable _wealth_ of suddenly having been handed all he desired. He wanted to do a dozen different things at once, to turn himself over against the table and let Khadgar have him right there, to take Khadgar back up to that enormous bed and fuck him till he cried; to have Khadgar press him against something, anything, with that holding spell, those waves of blue light, and take him any way he pleased—to fuck Khadgar with only his fingers, or perhaps his tongue, until Khadgar forgot there was any other way to do it.

And yet he couldn't pick which to try first, and—and perhaps, he dared to think, it didn't matter. Perhaps they would have more than enough time to try them all, and more besides.

And this, too, was more than enough to satisfy him: Khadgar gasping into his mouth, rutting desperately against his hip, clutching him close with both hands. Lothar held him tight and kissed him harder still, when he could, though as often he had to break away to pant, to squeeze his eyes shut and thrust up against the weight of Khadgar against him.

It was too soon, he thought ruefully, that Khadgar trembled against him with a sharp little sound caught in the back of his throat—but almost the moment he'd thought it, he perceived the glittering crest ahead of himself. He shoved his hands up beneath the edges of Khadgar's half-untucked shirt, and spared a moment to wonder whether it would have taken even two days to get here if the spell had required the contact of skin on skin; and then he thrust up shakily once more, twice, and tipped over the edge, spent himself with frantic urgency and his cheek pressed to Khadgar's, breath caught in his throat.

He knew better than to leave the silence stretching too long, after such a thing. He stroked his thumb along Khadgar's jaw, nudged him into another kiss—slower, softer, luxurious.

Khadgar held still beneath it at first; but then he caught Lothar's face in his hand and began to kiss back, and Lothar's heart settled a little in his chest.

"Well," Lothar murmured against his mouth, "if I'm any judge, you'll be a very effective mate indeed."

Khadgar snorted, ducking his head away and then tipping it back to laugh. "Thank you," he said, wry, still grinning, and then eased back a step to grimace down at his soiled breeches.

It took Lothar a moment to even realize what he had done, and a moment more to find the words to draw Khadgar's attention to it. Or some of them, at least: "You," he said. "Khadgar, you just—"

"Hm?" Khadgar said, and looked up; up, and then down again, the whole length of their bodies—and they stood close, still, but they were parted. _Parted_. Touching nowhere, not even the toes of their boots.

"Must be done carefully," Lothar mused aloud, after a moment. "Unless you should happen to have the time to fuck. Perhaps you'd better inform the Kirin Tor of this advancement in magical theory?"

"Perhaps it wasn't only sentiment," Khadgar said, "but—desperation." He angled a glance at Lothar, almost shy. "Touch itself, enough of it, and the longing for it lost the intensity a spell of that age and complexity required to maintain itself, even in its fractured state. Though—" He paused.

"Though?"

"There is another ancient remedy for curses, in the oldest stories," Khadgar murmured. "The Kirin Tor have never put much effort toward determining its effectiveness; it's notoriously rare and unpredictable."

Lothar swallowed. "Oh?" he said unsteadily.

Khadgar's mouth slanted, a bright sweet little smile. "Yes," he said, and leaned in, and kissed Lothar again.

 

 


End file.
